Friday, September 25, 2015

Being a writer is like having an assignment that's always
due. No matter how much fun you're having, in the back of your mind, there's a
voice that says, “You still need to do that paper,” except, unlike in school,
you aren’t given a topic.

Being a writer, at heart, means you always have a nagging
feeling that you're leaving something undone, incomplete. Like a hungry child
who's forced to leave food on the table or an alcoholic who has to leave wine
in a glass, that raw nagging, gnawing feeling, the yearning, remains.

Being a writer means no matter how materially successful
you are, how cushy your "real" job is, how many weeks vacation you
have or the size of your boat, you feel a fraud. You can't relax. You don't
take a deep breath and look around and sigh, “Ah, I've made it!” because you
know, just below the surface is a story that must be told, that must burst
forth, that in your mind, your fingers, your soul is a story that might
somehow, someway touch someone and make your life worthwhile. For why else,
would God, the Higher Power, the Master of the Universe, why else would He or She
enrich you with this gift, this drive to put words on paper or font to the
screen? It's a calling that must be followed or forever regretted.

And it's an odd one. Musicians seem to pick up a guitar
and let it play, to make music and joy, but writers are a different lot. We
fight it. We want it, yet we are terrified we’ll lose it. It's our identity,
yet we resist it. We downplay it. We force it to be quiet when it compels us to
pull out an envelope to jot down a phrase, or when we are introduced to a
person, and we roll her name around in our minds to see if it would fit a
character. A character we have in our heads, as we appear here but not here, living
in a world all to our own, feeling guilty for not sharing it, the stories we
make up as we go. We see the couple in front of us at a concert and come up
with ten different scenarios for who they are, why the wife seems so weary, why
the husband seems to be trying to hard, their background, their future, we see
it, all in a span of a song. Yet we push it away. We do the laundry, cook
breakfast, nag ourselves and make plans to do it tomorrow while the compulsion
bubbles beneath the surface threatening to erupt.

Then, suddenly, we look at the screen where we passively
sit and watch other people’s lives, and we see that one of our writer friends
has done what we only dreamed, they published something, a book of essays, a
work of fiction, a newspaper column, and we profess happiness, but, deep inside,
we hear our voices saying: I can do that.I should be doing that. Why am I not doing
that? Am I lazy? No, the effort it takes to resist writing is far more than
it takes to actually put pen to paper. Is
it fear of failure? I don't really think so because it's not success I care
about. It's getting it out, it's telling it, so I can be free and breathe and
know that when I meet my maker that He'll look at me and say, “Well done.”

Because, to a writer, hell would be getting to the end
and having God shake his head in disappointment, and my having to look down in
shame, knowing that I squandered it, this special gift He entrusted to me, and
others like me, and that my story, your story, our story would be buried with
me.

Friday, April 17, 2015

There’s a phenomenon that occurs when elevator doors
shut that causes personalities to change.

For example, seemingly ordinary people turn into comedians,
cracking jokes and forcing laughs from his captive audience. He, or she, to be
fair, say things like, “Guess this isn't the express? At least we’re in good
company! Yuk, yuk!” and “Are you working hard today or hardly working?” and, of
course, the “Is it hot/cold enough for ya?”

Sadly, there’s no off switch for these people. No
amount of looking at one’s cell phone or shoes or folding one’s arms in a
leave-me-the-hell-alone stance can make them stop. In fact, the more you ignore
them, the harder they try. Conversely, the worse the jokes get.

The second type of person is perhaps the most disturbing.
I hesitate to mention it, but since it’s the most annoying, I will. Ladies, see
if you agree with me. Certain men think that because a woman is standing next
to them in the elevator that she wants to be there. They truly believe that she
thinks what you have to say is amazing; thereby, they seize the moment to treat
it as if they’d just walked up to you in a bar.

“So, how you doin’?” they’ll ask, as they try to lean
coolly against the wall.

To which, I’ll reply “fine” without looking up from
my phone.

“Havin’ a good morning so far?”

“Pretty good,” I will unenthusiastically say,
glancing up to see a grinning face, before quickly looking down.

“I’m glad you are having a good morning,” he’ll say
and continue to stare outright while I ignore him completely and pray the next
stop will be his. If God is in a good mood, it is, and as he steps off, he will
say, “Hope you keep on having a good day!”

At which point, I’m in such a foul mood from his
speed dating attempt that my day is a long way from being good, especially
since it’s only 8 a.m.

The third type is the person who is clearly
terrified to be in there – claustrophobic, crying out at the slightest shake
and on the verge of screaming “We’re all going to die!” when the elevator door doesn't open right away. I’m actually OK with these people.

Of the three, I would prefer to be trapped with this
person. I’m not claustrophobic and think that I would be able to calmly wait
until the paramedics arrive should the elevator break down; however, were I
trapped with personality type number one or two, I would quickly morph into number
three. And, were I stuck in the elevator with number one AND two, I would run
in place, do jumping jacks and probably a set of burpees or two.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

A law is under consideration to allow citizens to
break into the other citizens’ vehicles in order to retrieve a child who has
been left inside. With cases of parents and grandparents forgetting their
children/grandchildren in the backseat becoming more and more commonplace, I
think it’s a good law, especially in light of Georgia’s summer heat.

But, it’s definitely not one I would have supported in
the 1970s. The highest honor my mom could bestow on me and my sister was allowing
us to wait in the car for her while she went in and did her shopping. I cannot
describe the exhilaration. Of course, we kept our windows down – and our doors
locked – as if that would save us, but the truth is we never had to worry. The
only time we would be in trouble was if we laid on the horn or hung out the
window and waved too hard at passerbys. In that case, someone would recognize
us, go into the store and promptly tell on us. Mother worked for the school
system, and the fact that I could never get away with anything because of that was the bane of
my 10-year-old existence.

If we were lucky, Mom would leave the a.m. radio on
and a song such as “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” would start to play, and my sister
and I would sing every word as the breeze blew through our hair, or more than
likely, as our thighs stuck to the seat, and we waved a piece of paper rapidly
as a fan. Sometimes, I’d scoot into the driver’s seat, under the big round
steering well of my mom’s white Pontiac and pretend to drive. In my mind’s eye,
the car was a comvertible, the song was something by Andy Gibb, and my legs
were long enough to reach the pedals. In my dreams, my sister and I would roar
out of town, leaving a trail of busy bodies wagging their fingers and clucking
their tongues behind us. OK, truthfully, they’d be clucking because I roared
off and left my sister behind because she wouldn’t stop looking at me.

Ah, nothing like the imaginary freedom of the open
road.

Apart from the independence, there’s another
significant reason my sister and I were grateful to be able to wait in the car.
We hated going inside the store, no matter what store it was. My mother had,
and still has, a warm manner that made everyone from the bread aisle to the
meat department want to tell her his or her life story, and what’s worse is
she’s a good listener! She’d patiently listen and ask probing questions and
take the time to give thoughtful responses, while my sister and I would wave
off cigarette smoke from shoppers and compare the bottoms of our feet to see whose
had gotten the dirtiest from walking down the grocery aisles without shoes. At
least at the end of the grocery shopping trip, we were likely to have
conned a pack of Little Debbie oatmeal pies out of Mom in exchange for our
misery.

The worst experiences, however, occurred in the downtown fabric store. First of all, there was no air in the fabric store,
not one breath. Second, there was nothing to look at in the fabric store,
except, you guessed it, fabric. Third, I did not always enjoy the matching outfits
my mom made my sister and me from material purchased at said fabric store. Of
course, had I behaved better and not pleaded, whined and begged to stay in
the car until she threatened me bodily harm or to tell my dad (same
difference), then maybe said fabric may have looked a little more ten-year-old
girl appropriate, instead of six, to match my sister’s age. Who’s to say? I
just know I hated that place.

I’m not sure how my sister felt about it. I only knew
she hid under the fabric rolls once we were in there and would not come out for
what felt like hours. I was convinced I would die in there, or worse, be locked
in and have to spend the night until my sister started sleep walking, and we
found her hiding place.

I had this happen in K-mart once, the locked in part,
that is. Somehow my mom didn’t heed the last call announcements, and the front
doors were bolted. About the time panic set in, we were ushered out the back
through a dark warehouse, where we shuffled through in a herd, until we exited
out the back side of the store, seemingly miles from our car.

It had quite an impact on an imaginative girl, enough
to know she’d rather take her chances and wait in the car. It's too bad kids today
can’t.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

A strange thing happens when you bring food to work.
People, civilized, nicely dressed, well-paid people, turn into ravenous wolves
that have apparently not eaten in days.

Don't believe me? Bring any kind of leftover to work,
put it on the table in the break room and then stand back to watch the crumbs
fly. I've seen half-eaten boxes of cereal brought in and then quickly emptied;
uneaten sandwiches and pasta from lunch meetings are gone faster than the blink
of an eye and dessert is devoured almost simultaneously. For a group of people
who remain largely inactive, office employees sure do like to eat a lot.

For someone like me who has enough of her grandmother
in her not to see good food go to waste, I have found it a satisfying, though
oft disturbing, environment. It’s a great way to get rid of extra holiday candy
or peanut brittle or loaf bread, for that matter.

A recent study showed that providing lunches for
employees boast loyalty. It can also cause employees to bite the hand that
feeds them so to speak. For example, my former office had a donut day. The
first day they were hot and from Krispy Kreme, and we all ate and appreciated
them. By the second time, however, we were criticizing the fact that they weren't hot, and by the third, we bemoaned the fact that they were no longer
from Krispy Kreme. By the fourth time, we were completely disgusted, “What the
heck is this? “ Why can’t we have bacon and eggs?” “Who chose these flavors?
Pink icing with sprinkles? We aren't kids!” we said, bitterly.

I guess our complaining
worked. We no longer get donut day.

My sister has had a similar
experience at her office. She works in Alaska, so her boss is kind enough to
bring them lunch almost daily, so they don’t have to get out in the cold –
until he went on a diet, that is. Her office was no longer filled with the
aroma of freshly baked bread, pizza and cookies for dessert.

“He’s got to get off this %$*
diet,” my sister and her coworkers complained. “I don’t care if he losing
weight for his health, we need some food up in here!”

So much for loyalty. The
stomach wants what the stomach wants, even in the workplace.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Today is a new year, but more importantly, it’s a new day.
The sun is shining. I have a nice new fuzzy red blanket that looks a lot like
Santa’s cape covering my lap, and I’m sipping coffee from a mug that says “Meow”
that my daughter made me. Never mind that she wrote “Crazy Cat Lady Club” on
the bottom.

So much emphasis is put on a new year. My email was
bombarded with “New Year, New You” messages about everything from teeth
whitening services to something called lipotropic weight loss shots, to microdermabrasion
- which I actually considered for a second before I realized there is nothing wrong
with my skin, and I really don’t even know what that is – along with constant
messages from a boot camp telling me my backside will get three sizes bigger if
I don’t show up for its trial session this Saturday. It’s so overwhelming that
it makes me want to break my get-out-of-bed-before-nine resolution and crawl
back under the covers.

I can’t say in the past that I would have signed up for all
of the above, but I would have differently felt guilty for NOT signing up. I
have tried every approach to resolutions from making them, to not making them,
to changing the time of year I made them. Yes, I made 4th of July
resolutions for several years. You can read about them here. And here.

Nothing worked. I tried narrowing my focus, for example, to work
out every day, instead of the vague “get into shape.” I tried making my
resolutions more realistic; for example, work out three days a week versus
every day. That helped, but it never stuck. Go to the gym in February, if you
don’t believe me. You’re more than likely to see the same people who were there
in Dec., with the January influx having already tapered off.

This New Year, however, things are different. I am
different. I no longer expect that when the ball drops, I’m magically going to
become this new person who loves working out at 6 a.m., never leaves trash in
her car, and can’t wait to get home from working all day to cook a healthy yet
delicious meal and then help her kids with their science fair projects. But, I
am the kind of person now who if I can do one of those things in a day, heck, in
a week, I will be satisfied.

And, I think that is key. Accepting oneself and one’s
shortcomings, but being open and willing to improving, not by some magic that
comes from turning of the calendar and toasting of the new year, but by hard
work that requires constant effort day by day. I think self-improvement comes
from waking up each day and saying, “What can I do to help other people? How
can I be kind to others?” and, most of the time, that includes being kind to
myself.

About Me

Take one Georgia-based writer, mix with humor and everyday life, and you have Life as Leigh sees it.
Meredith Leigh Knight is an award-winning writer and columnist who — when she’s not playing dress up and taking refuge among adults at her corporate communication job — is continually pondering the mysteries of motherhood, such as why the words “Hey, Mom!” are never followed by anything good.
You may contact her at leighslifeblog@aol.com or follow her on Twitter at @leighslifeblog.